Law School Murders: Ambience

The TV flickered. It asked Kim if she still wanted to watch. In four seconds the set flicked off. Kim woke up. She looked at her phone and asked the digital assistant the time. “It is three-forty seven am.”

She rocketed from her bed and went to her study. The work she had started on the Delaware Slasher Case needed to be completed. She looked at the files and made notes in the margins. By disregarding the interrupting student from yesterday, she permitted herself the chance to cut through the noise.

In a world where people both celebrated and maligned her, she had to continue to put her fame or infamy aside. But the pangs of her recent events in life stabbed at her. She just wanted to be a professor now and teach the law.

She grabbed a red pen and circled key points and pinpointed various elements that she knew were crucial to her relating the information to her students. As she burned through two hours of work, she needed to hear something other thab blank silence. For ambience, she switched the TV on again.

An early morning broadcast from Channel 30 at four in the morning revealed her face.

“…It was Professor Jergensen that led the young man to commit these crimes,” his lawyer said.

“It never ends.”

“Do you have any credible evidence which would suggest that the professor was involved in any of the homicides?” Bradley Birmingham, seasoned reporter, asked.

“Not at this time…”

“So, you’re not using your legal rationale and pinning another case on an innocent woman based on your client Friedkin’s hearsay ?” Birmingham asked.

“I have no further comments,” attorney Joel Wasso said. He moved off with a brusque manner.

“Mr. Wasso! Mr Wasso!” Birmingham turned to the camera. “As you can see, the lawyer could not properly answer the question. We’ll have more on this story as it develops. Vanessa.”

“Thank you for that, Brandon. Now, with the new auditorium….” Kim switched to the blues channel. She felt the cool words and hot licks from the musicians and readied again to attack her work.

The flow of the work itself prepared her for the day. The sun was just peeking up from the horizon. As she journaled and jotted, she thought about the deposition and thought that was enough. It was like a piece of twine being stretched and the fibers breaking at the middle. She knew she could have been dragged after the legal proceeding but she had never imagined a student going out of his way to place blame.

It was now five-thirty, usually the time she woke. In the moments of showering and dressing she wondered how many times the lawyer will be taking off in subsequent broadcasts of the news. She told herself to never mind. The commute to campus was short from her Newark brick walk-up.

When she showed up there was everyone accounted for except Friedkin. Kim just exhaled.

“With this Delaware Slasher case, we…”

“We’re with you, Professor Jergensen,” Anthony Denilio announced.

“Thank you, now—”

“No, we’re prepared to testify and do whatever it takes to make sure you’re part of the mill again,” Agatha Anders mentioned.

“I appreciate that. I thank you all in advance. I couldn’t ask for better students to support me during another bizarre time in my life. I sincerely must say you’re all in good standing for an A+…I’m kidding you’re going to have to earn it.”

The students clapped at that. “Are we ready to jump back into the lesson?”

“Yes!” the lecture resounded.

“Okay the murderer called the police after his seventh victim and showed where the other bodies were laid….”